[EverLove]

There is a Quaker at the bird store who is terrified of hands. His weakness is sunflower seeds, and he will warily take them from the employee’s hand.

I remember hearing about a method of training that focused on the bird touching your hand, and then getting a treat? I’m not sure if that is 100% right or not.

Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

 

[stacey101]

yes , i have 2 of my gold fish target trained , my dog and Mumble
its pretty easy once they get the hang of it

 

[EverLove]

yes , i have 2 of my gold fish target trained , my dog and Mumble
its pretty easy once they get the hang of it

How do you do it?

 

[Jenny]

The way I've seen target training done is to clicker train it - they touch what you want, click, treat :thumbsup:

 

[Birdluvr]

Yes. Clicker training is what it's called. Haven't tried it with Rico but here's so info on it. Basically what you do is target training first where the parrot touches the tip of the stick, you click with a clicker or your mouth, and reward. Then slowly work up to tricks or other behaviours you want. Here's some sites with more info.

http://www.essortment.com/all/clickertraining_pbj.htm
http://www.parrotchronicles.com/novdec2004/clickertraining.htm
and some movies
http://birds.about.com/b/2009/07/10/funny-bird-friday-kili-the-senegal-parrot.htm
http://www.birdtricks.com/blog/target-training-budgie/
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvXBWf57vJc&feature=channel"]YouTube- How to Train a Parrot : Training Games for Parrots[/ame]

Hope this helps!

 

[Friggin Joe]

I have a meyers who was very easy to target train because he always wanted to go to my finger, which was also the snack he got when he got to my finger and touched it with his inner beak.

The early days aside, I started with a clicker but eventually used a consistent "Good boy!" as the trigger, and the effect was the same nonetheless. Basically making the bird do things interactively while your fingers contain the reward (with the happy sound once they do what you want) seems to work wonders.

 

[Ella]

I haven't done it but I'm quite interested in learning more.

Thanks Birdluvr that video was great.